VOL. XXIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. • dfe 



author says, that Floraventes Martinellus, in this Roma Sacra, affirms that 

 printing was practised at Rome in the palace of the Maximi, A.D. 1455, under 

 Pope Nicolaus V. by Conrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz, who were both 

 Germans, and continued printers there for many years after. 



The custom of putting the dates of printed books at the end of them, was 

 taken up in imitation of several manuscripts of the middle and later ages (for I 

 never saw or heard of any ancient manuscript in capital letters, either Greek or 

 Latin, which has a professed date written in the first hand;) but here the in- 

 spector ought to be cautious, lest he be led into an error: for several manu- 

 scripts at the end have a date, which may be by some understood of the time 

 when those individual copies were written, whereas tliey only denote the time 

 when the author finished his work. And some of these dates being printed 

 from the manuscripts, have deceived many curious men. For example, the 

 first edition of Lyndwood, Paulus a Sancta Maria, and others which 1 could 

 name. Besides some dates in ancient printed books, being not corrected, are 

 false; such as a book printed in the beginning of the l6th century, in the 

 library belonging to the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, which thus pretends to 

 400 or 500 years of age. A Julius Hyginus once shown me by Mr. Millington 

 the bookseller, printed at Paris, as there set down, An. Dom. MCCCCXII, 

 instead of MCCCCCXII: for the printer is mentioned as then living in I'Origine 

 de rimprimerie de Paris. I have indeed a book wherein, among other tracts, is 

 one of an old print, at the end of which there seems to be such a mistake, 

 though not so easily rectified as the former. The words are these. Explicit 

 opusculum Enee Sylvii de duobus amantibus in Civitate Leydensi Anno Domini 

 Millesimo CCCC quadragesimo tertio LEIEN. Now though Leyden seems to 

 be the place where it was printed, yet 1443 cannot be the time; for, just be- 

 fore, Sylvius says himself. Vale, ex Vienna quinto Nonas Julias MCCCC 

 quadragesimo quarto. Sylvius was elected Pope by the name of Pius I. A. D. 

 1458, and died A. D. 1464. Now it may seem probable, that if this Tract was 

 printed after his election, as suppose A. D. 1463, or even after his decease, his 

 papal dignity might have been remembered; if it be judged to have been printed 

 before his election, I know none that will allow of printing at Leyden, or even 

 in Lyons, so very early. 



One objection may be urged against what is said of Koster's, or the old 

 printed books above-mentioned, being printed on paper about A. D. 1430, or 

 soon after: for some authors are of opinion, that paper made of linen rags was 

 first made at Basil, by some Greeks who fled out of their country after the 

 sackage of Constantinople, A.D. 1452, in imitation of the cotton paper, com- 

 monly used in the Levant. But this can have no force, our paper being much 



